


Might As Well Be Dreaming

by poisontaster



Series: Finding Serenity [5]
Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-09
Updated: 2006-05-09
Packaged: 2018-02-15 17:51:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2238039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisontaster/pseuds/poisontaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was a ritual to it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Might As Well Be Dreaming

Zoë carefully locked the cabin door behind her, shut off the comm, and stripped out of her clothes. There was a ritual to it; first she'd sit and unlace and take off her boots, putting them neatly next to the ladder, where they'd be handy in an emergency. Then her socks, with a few moments to wiggle her cramped toes in pure pleasure. Her feet had swollen up some, but not so bad she felt the need to spend cash they didn't have on a new pair. Ankles were swollen too, but the boots did a good job of holding them stiff and steady and for that she was grateful. Zoë didn't think she'd ever been so clumsy in her life as she'd turned out to be in the last few months.

Next was her vest, untied and put over the back of the chair, followed by her sweat-crushed shirt. The air was always a little cool, 'specially now, with money so tight and she shivered a little as the breeze from the blowers slid over the small of her back like a hand. Thigh holster was unbuckled and placed on the nightstand, handle pointed towards the bed. Trous and underthings last, folded up and put to the side, also in easy reach. This might be her time, but it could easily become ship's time without too much trouble, should something go wrong and there was indulgent and then there was just plain stupid, and Zoë might think she was owed this little bit of time, but she hadn't lost her damn fool mind.

Naked she lay on the bed and ran her hands over her skin, smooth and lustrous; finer than she could ever remember it being in her life, 'cept maybe when she was a kid and not paying much mind. He would've liked her like this, she thought, and that still ached a lot like a rotten tooth, but not as much as it did last week, or the week before that.

Zoë closed her eyes and remembered…

_"My cousin used to print up star charts for me off the Cortex." Wash smiles, tracing shapes on her belly with his finger. "Wasn't supposed to; Washburnes don't hold much with spacefaring, and my Gran would've had a fit over her filling my head with that nonsense, but she did it anyway. I'd hide them underneath my bunk and read them under my covers at night. Just…" His head ducks, embarrassed and she smiles, because shame and Wash don't have much passing acquaintance. She reaches down and brings his chin up, thumb stroking across his jaw. He smiles and it hurts her heart, how happy he looks, lying there 'tween her legs, this silly, shameless man she calls hers. "I'd say their names, over and over. In my head, or when I was by myself. The Pleiades. Orion the Hunter. Ursa Major and Minor. Cassiopeia… That was my favorite. Cass-e-OH-pee-ah."_

He chuckles and puts his head down on her pelvis and she combs through his hair while his fingers still run on over her skin. It takes her a little while, sleepy-stupid with sexing and happy, but finally she realizes the shapes he's drawing aren't faces at all.

They're constellations.

Zoë cupped her belly in both hands. It ain't mounded up much yet, solid as she's built, but she doesn't need a great big belly to feel and know the life that's in there. "That was your daddy," she said, as she did every day when she came and remembered and told over all her memories to what Kaylee's taken to calling her 'little passenger'. "He was born to these stars, and he wasn't ever so happy as he was up here among them. With me. With us. And every day, I look at them and remember their names. Because he told them to me."

And where that once burned and brought tears bitter as bile—and still does, just a bit—the fluttery movement of the baby inside her gave her the freedom and joy to laugh.

And that's how she knows it will be okay.


End file.
